If the scavenger hunt assignment in Intro to Journalism is my worst nightmare, this assignment surely comes in at a close second. Even though I am an actor, and it seems like this would go against every bit of intention behind becoming a professional actor, I have severe anxiety about talking to people I don’t know. Because of that I did use some people that I knew a little bit already or those that I was already being forced to get to know. However it seems that I am a shady enough character that I still got some amazing reactions to the offer of free cookies.

I gave away my first bag of cookies about five minutes after class ended. I walked back to my dorm room and my roommate, Amy, was there getting ready to head to her first class. As soon as I walked in to the room her eyes locked on my box of cookies and they didn’t leave that box for the entire time we were talking. She questioned me about why I had a box of cookies and when I told her she said, in a voice that sounded like the stereotypical child asking their teenage babysitter if they have games on their phone, “can I have one?” I thought about it for a second and then gave her one because at least that was one less person I had to talk to, even if I assume giving one to my best friend/roommate was against the assignment.

Soon after that my friend Grant Turner came by to visit. Technically my friend Jared was with him but Jared hates chocolate so the fact that I had the fudge stripe cookies made it so he could not be included in the assignment. He showed actual disgust when he saw what cookies I was tasked to distribute. I offered Grant a pack of cookies and he agreed without even thinking about it. Once I gave it to him he became suspicious. “That’s it,” he asked “I don’t have to do anything else you are just giving me cookies?” When I assured him that that was the extent of the exchange he exclaimed “Yeet!”

The next day I had to do a number of fittings since I am acting as the costume designer for the next show the theatre department is putting on. I brought the cookies with me because I figured they would be a good way to break the ice with my cast. They are all people I know due to the fact that we are all theatre people but I don’t necessarily hang out with. Now, though, I am required to get to know them because we are all playing a family in this show.

The first person to come in to the fitting was Maddie Schueth. She has to put up with me a lot in the upcoming show, because my character literally does nothing but hit on her or berate her any time we are on stage together, and I told her that because of that and the absurdity of the costume I am making her wear she got cookies. She looked at me like I was insane but once I tossed her the bag she yelled “LET’S FREAKING GOOOOOOOOOOOO! I love these!”

I went from this fitting to my theatre class. I walked in and said flat out “Who wants free cookies?” Taylor Clemens was the first person to answer. “I feel like…this is a trap,” he said giving me his signature side eye he uses to intimidate every person who ever tries to act in one of his shows.

During this interaction another student in the class, Katsunori, spoke up. “If he doesn’t want them I will take them!” Engels, another student, chimed in “I will also take cookies.”  As I moved on to give them their cookies Taylor spoke up again. “I mean, I will take them. I just don’t trust Joey. They are probably poisoned”

Class continued as normal from there until Taylor, finishing his bag states “Damn these little poisoned cookies are good.” At this Maddie who was also in the class asked, half jokingly, “can I have another one?” Because I was ready to get done with this assignment I tossed her another bag. She did not expect me to actually give her more, so when I tossed the cookies across the room she let out the most elated squeak followed by “OMG COOKIES!!” Maddie was probably the most appreciative of the cookies.

I now had only three bags of cookies left. I tried giving some away by putting a sign on my door that said “knock for free cookies” but no one knocked.

So I waited until the next fitting I was running to give away more cookies. This time Eric Wells came to get his costumes done. He is playing my son in this show and our characters have a, to say the least, interesting relationship and we were the two people who knew each other the least before starting this process. We have started to have a mother/son rapport so we were making jokes in that way and I made a soccer mom supplying snacks joke, grabbed a package of cookies from the box in my backpack, and asked him if he wanted it. He got this look of genuine affection on his face that you would expect from a child who was just given surprise cookies by his mother. He then said, because he is still a college age guy, “yes, bro! I want cookies!”

After the fitting I went back to my room quickly to put the box away before going to work and was quickly grabbing some stuff out of my room with the door open, something I never do because I don’t want people who live on my hall talking to me. As I was doing this though, the girl who lives across the hall, Cassy, came out and said “hi” as she walked past. I figured I should get an actual strangers reaction so I called after her “do you want some cookies?” She turned on her heels and pulled her sunglasses down suspiciously to give me one of those over the glasses looks that you expect from angry teachers. She looked at me like this until I said to her “no really, I have to give away cookies for a class I am in.” “Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said as I handed her the cookies and she went on her way.

I was on my last box of cookies and it was now Friday. I was running out of different people to give the cookies to and then I remembered that I had a production team meeting for the November theatre show that day. Though I am on the production team and know most of the other members very well, the girl serving as our SM is someone I don’t really know. So I sat through the production meeting and as we were winding down I turned to Katelyn Stewart and said “do you want some cookies.” Thinking I was asking a hypothetical question she said “Yeah.” I then brought out a package and she started laughing.

Overall people were a lot less interested in why I was giving them cookies than I thought they might be. Most of them were just here for cookies. I also learned that apparently I give off a shady enough vibe that I would poison people.